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Bra Hugh gets an African shrine

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Hugh Masekela’s pavilion is pictured during his unveiling at the West Park Cemetery in Randburg, Johannesburg
Hugh Masekela’s pavilion is pictured during his unveiling at the West Park Cemetery in Randburg, Johannesburg

“Bra Hugh laughed a lot and his laughter is scattered all across the world,” said emcee Kgomotso Matsunyane as Hugh Masekela’s grandchildren gathered up the brightly coloured African cloth that served as a ribbon, officially opening a magnificent memorial pavilion for the late jazz trumpet master designed by world famous, award-winning Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye.

This they did to the strains of a trumpet solo from Sthe Bhengu, who reprised some of Masekela’s most famous compositions.

Permanently installed just near the entrance to West Park Cemetery in Johannesburg, right next to ANC stalwart Ahmed Kathrada’s grave, the pavilion has leaf shapes cut from its roof to emulate a tree, a gathering place in villages across Africa.

A shy and humble Adjaye, who flew in from Ghana to attend the unveiling yesterday morning, told the famous guests: “By using his music he inspired people of my generation to understand that we needed to look at our own continent to make our work.”

Among the well-heeled and beautifully attired guests – all sporting a special Bra Hugh badge that was handed out – were poet laureate Mongane Wally Serote, songbird Abigail Kubeka, actress Thembi Mtshali, radio legend Shado Twala and former national assembly speaker Baleka Mbete.

Proceedings began with the Diphala Traditional Group, who sang and praised Masekela’s ancestors.

Radio personality and TV boss Matsunyane read lines written by Masekela about his many trips around the continent. There were also prayers and an address by the family at a joyful event celebrating the spirit of Masekela and his impact on his fellow Africans.

Speaking to City Press after the unveiling, Adjaye explained that he had consciously sourced the stone for the memorial from across Africa – from Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

“I had to try to find, within the narrative of the structure, Hugh’s idea of pan-African identity.

Hugh went out into the world, into all corners of Africa, so with this shrine I wanted to bring together the continent that honours him, using the soil and the land, the geology that means so much to Africans who will visit the pavilion to remember him.”

Sir David Adjaye and Barbara Masekela are pictured at the unveiling pavilion of Bra Hugh Masekela at the West Park Cemetery in Randburg, Johannesburg. Picture: Rosetta Msimango/City Press

Adjaye said he has a team in South Africa who have been working on small projects for him and all the construction for the pavilion was done locally.

Standing with the family in the pavilion, light began to shine through the roof of it, delighting Adjaye. “The canopy is pierced with sunlight like it’s coming through a tree. It’s an open and joyous structure,” he said.

The 52-year-old Adjaye, who has helped design some of the planet’s most iconic structures, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, said that he has spent the past 11 years touring each and every country on the continent and taking photographs to understand the language of Africa’s architecture.

He is now permanently based in Accra, even though he has offices in London and New York.

“This is a modern interpretation of African burial sites.

If you look at the famous shrines in Kenya, like the Kusumba shrine, it’s a gathering hut with columns and you come in and the ancestors are buried just underneath your feet.

You come to a place where there are mats laid and you sit there and that’s where you talk with the ancestors. It’s a royal tomb.

But if you go to Rwanda the same tombs are used, these hut-like structures. In west Africa and in Nigeria the dead are often buried in the garden under trees.

I wanted to find that spirit, where this kind of joy can happen, where you can come and talk with someone who did amazing things with his life and who is inspiring.”


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